This evening’s programme is starting with Alborada del Gracioso, the 4th movement of Miroirs (a suite for solo piano  written and later orchestrated by Maurice Ravel). The 10-minute-long piece is technically challenging for its performers. Symphony No. 4 by Ralph Vaughan Williams was characterised by his fellow British composer William Walton as 'the greatest symphony since Beethoven”. The composer declined to give his work a title, expressing his intention for the listener to hear and understand the symphony as pure music, without any external influence or effect. Prokofiev wrote his Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1911 during his conservatory period, introducing his distinctive style where cold ingenuity alternates with profound emotion in wonderful fashion. The concerto, which comprises three sections played without interruption, will be performed here by Viktoria Postnikova, and will be followed by some excerpts from the same composer's ballet Romeo and Juliet. The orchestra will be conducted by one of the most infuential conductors, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, who has inspired Sofia Gubaidulina and Alfred Schnittke as well. Among many things he is known for the recordings of the complete piano works of Tchaikovsky.